The World Hates America Again

President Obama pauses as he speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in this file photo. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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As a candidate, Barack Obama gave a well-received speech in Germany in 2008. As president, he gave another in Egypt the following year. And yet today, those two very different nations have something in common—anti-American sentiment is soaring, writes Russell Berman at Real Clear Politics. This is worrisome because these aren't the usual hotbeds of anti-US rancor, but "countries with strong histories of cooperation with the US and in which America has deep investments."

It's a sign of a bigger problem, writes Berman: He argues that Obama's promise to restore America's image has failed because of a muddled foreign policy. The president bet that "a consistent pull-back and a programmatic reduction in the projection of American power abroad" would pay dividends. He bet wrong. Look at how Russia and Iran deal with us, for instance. "Instead of healing the rifts of the past, the administration’s foreign policy of weakness has bequeathed a legacy that has emerged vividly in the past months: The return of anti-Americanism." Click for Berman's full column. (Read more Egypt stories.)

Here is an interesting survey entitled "U.S. Favorability" showing what the World thinks of the United States of America and how the perception has changed from 2000 to 2013... http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/07/18/chapter-1-attitudes-toward-the-united-states/ Comparing 2000 or 2002, as there is not a rating for each year, with 2013 which has a rating for each country we see that 13 countries rated the U.S. more favorably under George Bush than they did for Barack Obama. Seven countries gave the U.S. a higher approval rating under Obama than Bush and two countries rated the U.S. the same under both presidents. I could not include every country shown as not all countries had ratings for either 2000- 2002. So almost twice as many countries gave the United States a higher approval rating under President Bush than they did President Obama..